On 13 November, we proudly hosted the Hearing Therapeutics Summit 2025, bringing together academic scientists, clinicians, investors, funders and industry representatives, to accelerate progress towards treatments for hearing loss and tinnitus.
Thanks to our sponsors and supporters below, this event provided an opportunity to share breakthroughs, discuss challenges, and start conversations:
- Shionogi – Gold Sponsor
- Acousia Therapeutics – Silver Sponsor
- Sensorion – Evening Reception Sponsor
- Turner Scientific – Digital Agenda Sponsor
- Norgine – Grant Supporter*
Why this matters
Hearing loss and tinnitus affect millions of people worldwide, yet there are currently no treatments that can restore hearing or silence tinnitus.
Carla Golledge spoke about her son’s experience with Norrie disease, which causes blindness and hearing loss, and her hope for treatments to preserve the little hearing he has left.
Laura Bunn shared what living with tinnitus means for her and what silencing it would bring.
These stories reinforced the attendees’ motivation to work towards new treatments for hearing loss and tinnitus, and to do so better and faster, through collaborations across the sector.
New advances in hearing research
Researchers from the UK, Europe, and the US presented exciting developments:
- Morag Lewis from King’s College London is comparing different hearing loss models, studying changes in thousands of genes and identifying existing drugs that could counter those changes. This RNID-funded research aims to test drugs that could delay or prevent hearing loss.
- Jonathan Gale from University College London described stress granules (temporary structures that cells create in response to stress, for example when exposed to ototoxic drugs). These granules are important for the survival of hair cells – the delicate sensory cells that detect sounds.
- Uri Manor from UC San Diego is developing novel AI tools to help researchers quantifying structural components of the sensory hair cells and neurons with increased accuracy. This will speed up the detection of damage sites in different types of hearing loss, which will help inform treatment strategies.
- Laurent Desire from Sensorion explained a new gene therapy for mutations in the GJB2 gene, linked to a common form of inherited hearing loss. The approach has potential to enter clinical trials in 2026.
- Erik de Vrieze from Radboud University Medical Center presented an alternative technology to gene therapy. This RNID-funded project consists of small molecules that can block the effect of genes carrying mutations linked with inherited hearing loss.
The key message: we need better pre-clinical models to predict which treatments will succeed in clinical trials.
Exciting progress updates from the industry
- Reimar Schlingensiepen from AudioCure presented a clinical trial for sudden sensorineural hearing loss, based on a drug that preserves hair cell integrity and survival.
- Robert Nash from Great Ormond Street Hospital shared an update on the otoferlin gene therapy clinical trial, a collaboration with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. The first 12 children who received gene therapy for profound hearing loss showed improvement in their hearing, with only one exception.
- Jonas Dyhrfjeld-Johnsen from Acousia Therapeutics described a protective drug to prevent hearing loss caused by cisplatin.
- Rachel Haines from Rinri Therapeutics shared their approach to a stem cell therapy for hearing loss. The Rincell-1 cell therapy will soon enter a clinical trial.
The key message from industry: to test treatments effectively, we need to identify groups of people with the same type and cause of hearing loss.
What the conversations revealed
Three panel discussions explored:
- What attracts investment into developing treatments. Investors want strong evidence that treatments will work in humans and clear definitions of who will benefit.
- Regulatory challenges. Standardised ways to measure outcomes are essential to compare different studies, and those outcomes must matter to patients.
- Shared challenges and opportunities. Better, earlier diagnosis is critical. It helps researchers target the right mechanisms, industry select trial participants, and clinicians offer appropriate care.
What next?
The collaborations sparked at the summit will help attract investment and accelerate the development of treatments for hearing loss and tinnitus. We are proud of how our Hearing Therapeutics Initiative leads these conversations.
Together, we’re building a future where hearing loss and tinnitus can be treated.
Help fund hearing research
*Norgine provided an unrestricted grant as funding and had no input into the content or organisation of this event.
